Promise Me
by A. G. Moria
Summary: Sometimes changing the world comes at a price. Sometimes bringing change into the world comes at a price as well. Either way, there will be a loss and plenty of sorrow.


**I wrote this a while back but just forgot to publish it. At least I remembered it, so here have this one shot.**

**Enjoy!**

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Dragon's Point of View:

I have seen many tragedies in my cursed existence. Being the leader of the revolution, hundreds of people's blood stained my hands with their blood, the stench of their death so strong that even the richest garden could not over power it. For years I have carried the memory of their blood, their death, in my mind; smelling it as keenly now as I did then. Though nothing, not even the hordes of dead piled before my power, could prepare me for this.

She'd gone into labor nearly seventeen hours before. Innocent enough with the sudden drip of her broken water, soon followed by the expected pain as her body prepared to pass our child. But the child did not come and the pain only continued to worsen. Trapped on top of a snowy mountain where the two of us had made our own little base, I was unable to provide her with the common courtesy of a doctor or even a midwife. No, it was only her and I, and a merciless agony that gripped her in its wake, dragging her deeper into oblivion.

I knew childbirth to be a messy business having watched several refugee women birth their own babes. I knew what to expect. I was prepared- or so I thought.

The bleeding had only continued to increase despite my best efforts to slow it; its stench rising carefully buried ghosts and the mess flowed through my hands, pooling at my knees where I crouched before her. She lay before me now exhausted from a birth that would not be, covered in a film of sweat that beaded from pale skin. No, I realized with trepidation, pale it was she'd once been. Now her skin was translucent, the ugly veins showing very clear in her flesh. I knew in that one sickening moment as her eyes sought mine, their once deep blue now a faded gray; that my wife would not live. She would die, taking our baby with her and I would be left alone.

"Dragon…"!

Her once beautiful voice rasped with pain as her hand sought mine. Desperately I grasped it, held it, unwilling to let go- unable. She smiled, her hand pulling mine to her swollen stomach where I could still feel the babe moving, although it too had begun to fade, it's movements becoming slower, weaker. They were dying. Tears rolled down my face as I begged every god I'd ever known to save her, save them. Her hand tightened around mine as another spasm of pain ripped through her already battered body.

"Yes, my love…"?

She smiled at me kindly, her free hand tracing the outline of my face as she drew me near, pressing a firm kiss to my lips.

"Dragon... I won't make it..."

"No, you will live! Don't say those words again! Don't even think abou-"

"Dragon," She soothed pulling my face to hers once more placing soft kisses on my flesh. "Promise me something, Dragon. Promise me you won't let our baby die".

I lowered my head, "My... my darling..."

"This is all I ask of you," She whispered, her eyes turning fierce as they locked my gaze. "Dragon... carve it out. Carve out the baby before I die, or we're both lost".

The nauseating stench of blood and death rushed into my throat, strangling me with their madness, for madness it what this surely must be. Carve it out! Carve the child from your living flesh! "W- What..." I choked not believing, not wanting to hear, to see the reality before me. "My darling, I can't...I..."

"Do it, Dragon"!

I shrank away from the woman before me. She was not my beloved. This wasn't real- none of it was real! Her eyes watered, tears streaming down her face, blood slipping from between her thighs.

"Please Dragon! PLEASE"! Desperation crept into her face, her nails digging into my flesh. "Save our baby! Do this for me, Dragon"!

I'll never know where I found the strength. Somehow I stumbled to the drawer, removing a prized dagger she'd bought for me on our anniversary. Feeling numb, I stared at the fine silver etchings, the razor shape blade, knowing in a few moments it'd cut into the soft flesh of my dying wife.

With shaking hands I returned, standing before her as the executioner, the world spinning wildly before me in a rush of blood and death. My hands sank into soft flesh, entrails wrapping around me, sliding against my murder's hand as I searched for the child.

My hands closed around one tiny leg, moving to support a small head as I pulled my baby free. I nearly gasped as the newborn child looked at me; he looked like me in the pictures from when I was a baby.

"Dragon..."

I couldn't look at her, not knowing what I'd done. I'd killed her.

"Let me see him..."

I momentarily forgot about our son but remembered him as soon as she said those words. Now starting to weep, I collapsed beside her, handing the boy into her arms.

"Oh Dragon..." She whispered with a tenderness that caused me to stop breathing, "He's beautiful". I watched, feeling numb, as she placed that first kiss on his pink flesh, her eyes filling with tears as she gazed at me. The light in them was almost gone. I couldn't speak. She smiled, her hand caressing mine weakly, our son cradled next to her chest.

"Promise me… Dragon... that you'll love him for both of us…"

I nodded dumbly, tears falling from my eyes. Her smile weaken slightly as she mouthed the words, I love you.

She was gone.

I sat there for hours watching my dead wife, cradling our son in my arms, pressing desperate kisses to his soft flesh. I'd promised her I'd love him for both of us, and this was as good as place as any to start. Looking down to his wide eyes, I smiled. "Let me tell you a story Luffy, about a beautiful angel in a world full of wickedness and darkness..."

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**The End!**


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